


Wander

by a_windsor



Series: Thing!verse [24]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:59:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_windsor/pseuds/a_windsor
Summary: Arizona still doesn't think she's cut out for this, but others disagree. February 2023.





	Wander

_Wander_ **\- February 2023**

 

“Ma’am?”

“Um, yeah, sorry, no. Can you make that one and a half pounds of American cheese? Yeah. That should hold us for the week,” Arizona manages to get out, the poor boy behind the deli counter looking at her like she’s lost her mind.

Her free hand pinches at the bridge of her nose, trying to fight back her raging headache. The other hand soothes one of the many sources of that headache, but ten-month-old Teo, strapped to her chest, just won’t stop screaming.

“I know. I know you’re hungry, buddy, just please give Momma a break,” she begs, running a hand over his fuzzy head.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yes-huh, stupid.”

“I’m not stupid, you’re...”

“ _Hey!_ ”

She just snaps.

Asa pauses in pushing his younger sister, and they both look wide-eyed at their mother.

She’s had the day from hell, Teo has been cranky ever since she picked them up from the hospital daycare, Lena and Asa have yet to stop being nasty to each other, and Callie was caught at work with a multiple MVA, leaving her to do the week’s shopping with all four kids and a killer migraine.

“Stop, just stop. Do not speak to each other that way, and Asa, you know better than to push your sister. Lena, grab the right side of the cart. Asa, you grab the left. And I don’t want to hear another word from either of you or you’re both in time out when we get home. And Caroline...”

She turns to address the ever-singing four-year-old, and her heart drops to her stomach.

Caroline is nowhere in sight.

“Where is your sister?” she demands harshly of the already stricken pair. “Guys, where’s Caroline?”

“I don’t know, Momma,” Asa begins slowly, looking around himself.

Teo continues to wail.

The panic builds as Arizona continues to scan the surrounding area for little Caroline.

“She was just here!” she says, mostly to herself.

A million awful scenarios play in her head. She’d just turned around for a second! Caroline was just there, singing the wrong words to “Under the Sea” for the ten millionth time.

“Ma’am?” the deli boy interrupts. “Is something wrong?”

“Stay here,” Arizona instructs her seven- and nine-year-old. “Don’t move a muscle.”

“But Momma...”

“Stay. Here,” she orders.

She takes off back towards the seafood section, where Caroline always dilly-dallies over the live lobsters. Her own panic has made Teo even angrier.

She’s not with the lobsters, so the next stop is...

Candy. Thank god.

“Caroline Grace Robbins-Torres!”

Her mommy-voice is in full force, and Caroline automatically freezes mid-M&M’s reach. She turns, looking comically guilty with Callie’s huge dark eyes in her tiny little face.

“Momma...”

Arizona grabs her arm (probably a little too hard, she takes a deep breath and relaxes her grip a little). She crouches down, more at her third child’s eye line, making sure the sheepish girl meets her eyes. It may just be the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears, but Teo seems to have calmed to just whimpers.

“Don’t _ever_ wander off like that again. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caroline agrees, just a bit petulant.

“What do we do in a grocery store?”

“Keep one hand on the cart.”

Arizona lets out half a breath as Caroline’s eyes start to water a little.

“ _Look_ at me, Cari. Don’t you see how much you scared Momma? What would I do if I lost you?”

“Can’t lose me. Momma, you always find me,” Caroline says earnestly.

Arizona pulls the small girl into a tight embrace. Teo begins to squawk again at being squished.

“I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Caroline mumbles into her mother’s shoulder. “Momma?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Am I in time out?”

“Oh, ho. You are _so_ in time out it is not even funny, young lady,” Arizona informs her, standing and taking Caroline’s hand to hurry back to the deli counter.

“Time out is _not_ funny,” Caroline says glumly.

Arizona lets out a full breath as they return to the cart and Lena and Asa (who haven’t moved from their positions). Only now does she realize she’s shaking.

Reunited, the three older Robbins-Torres children are unusually subdued while Teo continues to cry, just the tiniest bit more softly. Arizona is too stressed, and angry, and terrified to reassure them, so she just hurries through the end of the grocery list.

Asa has taken Caroline’s hand from their mother’s with a quiet but reproachful “Ya sabes” [“You know better.”] and keeps a firm but gentle grip on the four-year-old’s fingers for the rest of the expedition, throwing their obviously shaken momma concerned looks.

Caroline is properly chastised, and, when they get to the car, climbs immediately into her carseat and waits to be buckled. Asa and Lena quietly help Arizona throw the groceries into the back of the SUV before climbing in themselves. After buckling Caroline into her driver’s side seat, Asa pushes off of Lena’s middle booster and lands in the “way back”, his domain. Lena settles into her seat while Arizona buckles still unhappy Teo into his carseat.

“C’mon, Tiny Dancer,” she begs. “Just a second of quiet.”

Arizona climbs into the driver’s seat and realizes she’s still shaking. She takes a deep breath and catches a glimpse of little Caroline in the mirror. Relief and terror war within her. What if someone had...

“Shh, Teo,” Lena is saying softly, leaning over her brother and soothing his brow with one hand, the other hand offering fingers for him to grab onto. “’Stá bien, bubba. Gonna go home and Momma’s gonna make us pizza. Shh... Momma’s gotta headache so we gotta be quiet. It’s okay, hermanito.”

Teo does begin to settle down at his sister’s gentle words.

“Blue jean baby,” Lena begins to sing.

“LA lady,” Asa pipes up from the back seat with a grin.

“Seamstress for the band,” all three of Teo’s siblings join in, though Cari says “see-stress rubber band”. Teo giggles a little, half laugh, half cry.

Arizona echoes the feeling, beaming at them with wet eyes as she continues:

“Pretty eyed...”

She leads them all the way through one round of “hold me closer”, and her head is still pounding but Teo has stopped crying and she feels a weight has been hefted off her shoulders.

She still feels like she isn’t cut out for this, especially in the face of Callie’s natural ability to handle their chaos without this crippling anxiety, but they continue to remind her that they’re all in this together. God, she wouldn’t trade them for the world. Or all the chickens in the world. _They_ , Asa, Lena, Caroline, and Teo, are her world (plus their madre, of course). And through four is stressful, she can’t imagine feeling complete without every single one of them.

“Thanks, guys,” she sighs, now that they’re all smiling in the backseats, Asa leaning forward between his two sisters’ heads, resting his face on his hands.

They seem to be consulting on something, but it’s soft and low and she thinks it’s in Spanish.

“Momma,” Asa finally speaks up. “We’re sorry we were so bad in the store. Lena and I shouldn’t fight, and Caroline should’ve stayed close.”

Because he’s a big brother, not a saint, the last part has a little extra accusation in it, but Arizona lets it slide.

“Perdona, Momma. Nunca más.” [“Sorry, Momma. Never again.”]

Arizona has picked up enough Spanish to know a heartfelt apology when she hears one. Caroline is still young enough to get her language wires crossed and forget what she’s speaking. Asa and Lena still have their moments, but school and maturity made them better at separating.

“I appreciate that, guys. And I’m sorry I snapped. I had a bad day at work. Now, Mateo, do you have anything to say to us? An apology, maybe, for being a baby howler monkey?”

Teo giggles and claps his hands and baby-babbles.

“He said ‘Sorry, Momma’,” Caroline says seriously. As the next youngest, she often serves as her baby brother’s translator.

“Thanks, Cari. Okay, ready to go home? I’m starving.”

A chorus of “Me, too!” greets her.

“Asa, are you...”

The boy throws himself back and slings the seatbelt across his torso.

“Buckling!”

“Alright, troops, let’s roll out.”

 

***

 

Still hanging onto the remnants of guilty consciences, Asa, Lena, and Caroline all help with the groceries as Arizona wrestles Teo out of his carseat and onto her hip. On their third trip, Callie’s car pulls into the garage (after checking for wayward children, of course). It’s their last trip and, diaper bag dropped off, Arizona helps with Teo balanced precariously in her arms; at least he’s in a better mood since his serenade.

They drop their bags and pile onto their madre. She greets them with her brilliant smile.

“Hey guys! Were you good for Momma at the store?”

That puts a damper on their good spirits, and Lena nudges Caroline.

“No, Mami,” their younger daughter declares with a pout. “We were bad. They fought,” she accuses, “And Teo cried the whole time. And I...” She sighs. “ _Wandered_.”

Caroline says it rather adorably, but Callie schools her features after one look at the stress and lingering anger/fear on Arizona’s face at the mention of Caroline’s antics.

“Caroline Grace. Ya sabes. Ándate a la escalera.” [You know better. Go sit on the stairs.]

“Sí, Mami. Momma ya me dijo that I’m in time out.” [...Momma already told me...]

“Okay. All three of you take the groceries into the kitchen. Asa, Lena, go play until dinner’s ready. No fighting, or you get no dessert.”

“Yes ma’am,” they chorus and scatter.

Callie had laughed at Arizona’s insistence that their children say their ‘ma’am’s and ‘sir’s without fail, but it feels damn good to have that extra sign of respect on nights like tonight.

“Tiny Dancer, why were you crying?” Callie questions of their always-moving youngest, using Arizona’s nickname for him.

Teo smiles and reaches for his madre.

Callie takes him and kisses his cheek before using her free arm to pull Arizona close.

Arizona drops her forehead to Callie’s shoulder and lets out a shaky sigh.

“I lost her.”

“No,” Callie says firmly, dropping a kiss on her wife’s head and running her hand soothingly up and down her spine. “She _wandered_. She knows better.” She rests her cheek on the soft hair at Arizona’s crown. “You were scared.”

“I was _terrified_. And so angry.”

“Lobsters or strawberries?”

“M&M’s.”

“Right.”

Teo squirms, squished between his mothers.

“Okay,” Callie says, pushing away enough to kiss Arizona warmly. “Okay. Let’s strap the littlest monster into his highchair, slip the pizza in the oven, and then you can have a nice big glass of wine while I unpack the groceries. Deal?”

“And we have to get Cari off the time out step.”

“Do we?” Callie jokes.

“Soon. She’s already apologized.”

“Okay.”

They head inside. While Callie puts Teo in his high chair with a teething ring, Arizona sits with Caroline and reiterates the importance of staying close. Then she kisses her and sends her on her way to the playroom to join her miraculously _not_ bickering siblings.

“I’m glad we didn’t have ten,” Arizona sighs as she collapses onto a stool at the island, smiling at the generously filled wine glass waiting for her. Teo’s pulled up alongside her, and she runs a finger over the warm skin of his cheek. He’s angelic when he’s not screaming.

“I don’t know,” Callie grins. “Now that we’ve done the adoption thing once, I could go for forty. My objections for ten came when I was the one having the babies.”

“Oh no, four is good. Four is perfect. You like being the baby, right, Teo?”

“But one more and we could have our own basketball team,” Callie teases.

“This is a soccer family.”

“Eleven, then?”

Arizona throws a nearby pen at her; Teo laughs.

“Momma, you’re modeling poor behavior,” Callie sparkles, easily dodging the projectile.

“Yeah, well. I’d come over there and model some more bad behavior but I’m too exhausted to move.”

Callie obliges her, circling the island to come up behind her and press warm kisses into her neck.

“What were Lena and Asa fighting about?”

“Who was breathing louder? I don’t know,” she shrugs, relaxing at the familiar feel of soft lips on her bare skin stealing the tension away. “Those two just pick, pick, pick at each other.”

“Only because they’re so close. They just know what buttons to push.”

“Yeah, I guess Danny and I were the same at that age.”

“See? It’ll get better. Plus, listen to them when they’re _not_ fighting.”

Their voices float down the hallway from their tricked-out playroom.

“Okay, you make the school, and Cari and I will build the stores.”

“Asa, will you pass me the big red block?”

“Sure, Leni. Caroline, what store should we build first?”

“Pet store!”

“Alright.”

Callie smiles, burying her face in Arizona’s shoulder, arms wrapped around her waist. She loves the little moments that remind her that their children actually genuinely like each other, despite their numerous fights.

“That’s nice,” Arizona sighs. “They’re building a town.”

“With a school. And a pet store.”

“The essentials,” Arizona teases, lacing her fingers through Callie’s.

“They’re gonna ask for a puppy again soon,” Callie groans.

“No, no! No puppy! It would terrorize poor Fauna and Merryweather. And they’re just getting over the loss of Flora.”

“Babe, I love you.” She kisses Arizona’s cheek as the oven beeps, and she pulls away. “But your obsession with the chickens is still weird.”

“Hey!”

“Mateo, tell your momma she’s _crazy_ about those chickies.”

“Aw, Teo, no. You love the chickies, too! We fed them together this morning. He waved to Merry.”

Teo is engrossed in his teething and barely acknowledges his mothers, looking up at them through his long lashes while slobbering all over his hand.

“Should I round up the troops?” Arizona asks, after a big sip of her wine. “Or rather, the city planners?”

“Yep, pizza’s ready.”

“Oh my munchkins,” Arizona sings as she wanders back towards the playroom. “Are you hungry?”

“Momma, Momma, come see our town!” Caroline calls.

Arizona enters the room and sees her munchkins all working intently on their wooden block town. Asa and Lena are on their stomachs, staring at their creations. Caroline is flitting about retrieving construction materials.

“Whatcha think?” Caroline asks.

“Not done yet,” Asa pipes up.

“Well, I want the full tour before bath time, but for now it’s time for dinner. Hurry up, before it gets cold!”

Asa scurries to his feet and out the door.

“Lena...”

The little blonde pops up at the second command, jokingly saluting.

“Ready, Miss Caroline?”

Caroline grins, and Arizona can’t help it, scooping her up with a flourish that causes Cari to squeal. She nuzzles the soft skin at her neck, and Caroline giggles.

“Momma!” she gasps for air. “We’re gonna be late to dinner!”

“Oh, we are, huh?”

“Don’t make Mami wait!”

“Alright, alright. I guess you’re right.”

She settles Caroline onto her hip and smiles when she feels little arms thread around her neck. Caroline drives her crazy, but she does love her little Calliope-clone.

“What kinda pizza is it, Momma?” Caroline asks, playing idly with Arizona’s curls.

“Cheese, I think.”

“Oh good. I don’ like nothing else.”

“Anything else,” Arizona corrects gently.

Asa and Lena are already seated at the table, eagerly awaiting the pizza. Arizona drops Caroline into her chair and then drags Teo’s high chair next to her.

The kids all have their assigned seats at the dinner table, but Arizona and Callie switch off at each end depending on who has the joy of feeding Mr. T.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Arizona suggests, as her wife sets the pizza on the table.

“Nope,” Callie shakes her head. “I’ve got him. Go have girl talk at the other end. The boys and I’ll grunt and talk about football.”

“Hey, I like football!” Lena complains.

“Me, too!” Caroline pipes up.

“See what happens when you start throwing gender stereotypes around this house?” Arizona teases.

“Sorry, sorry!” Callie laughs, leaning over to kiss her chastely.

“Oh, gross. They’re kissin’,” Caroline sighs, hands thrown into her face.

Asa and Lena hurry to cover each other’s eyes.

“Someone save the baby!” Asa teases.

Arizona grins and covers Teo’s eyes with one hand while going in for another brief but less chaste kiss.

“Pizza’s getting cold,” Lena sighs from behind Asa’s hand.

“Okay, okay. Everybody calm down. I’m allowed to kiss your mother whenever I want,” Callie says, pretending to be firm as Arizona winks at her and heads for her end of the table.

“How come?”

“’Cause they’re married, Cari,” Asa informs in his big brotherly know-it-all voice. “All married people kiss. Think about Uncle Mark and Aunt Lexie. Or Aunt Teddy and Uncle Matt.”

“Oh.”

“I’m hungry,” Lena whines.

“Yes, enough talk of kissing. Who’s saying grace?” Arizona asks.

All three older children point to their baby brother.

“Nice try. Lena?”

They dutifully close their eyes and grab hands, and Arizona settles back into her chair with a contented sigh, her bad mood drifting away as Lena starts:

“God is great...”

They all join in, and the comforting chorus soothes her even further.

Afterwards, the pizza is distributed and the table fills up with idle chatter about Asa’s and Lena’s second and fourth grade school days and Caroline’s and Teo’s reign of terror at the hospital daycare.

Once they’re stuffed with pizza, the older children give their mothers a tour of Robbins-Torresville and finagle a stay of execution on clean up so that they can work on it tomorrow. Then it’s bath time under Mami’s supervision while Momma puts Teo down for the night. Asa showers in the bathroom he ostensibly shares with Teo while the girls splash around in their bathtub.

Arizona rocks Teo and hums him a lullaby, his tiny feet bobbing with the beat, a phenomenon he’s demonstrated practically from the day he was born and which earned him his nickname.

“Kisses, Momma?” Lena asks from the doorway where she and her sister stand, sweet and clean and pj’ed.

“You better get over here and kiss me, kiddos.”

Both girls grin. They hurry over and push up on their toes to each give their Momma a goodnight kiss before dropping kisses on their brother’s soft forehead.

“Night, Momma. Night, hermanito.”

“Goodnight, girlies. Sweet dreams. I love you. Now get off to bed. It’s late!”

“Love you!” each tosses over her shoulder before scurrying out to their beds.

Asa appears at the bathroom door and repeats the ritual, grown out buzz cut spiky with water.

“Can I read some before lights out?” he asks, kissing her. “Mami is reading to the girls, but I only have two chapters left in my book.”

“Of course. I’ll come switch off your light after I get Teo down.”

“’Kay, thanks, Momma.”

“Alright, little man, time to get serious about sleep,” Arizona instructs Teo, pulling him down from her shoulder, tucking him into the crook of her elbow. “You owe me, howler monkey.”

He looks up at her with sleepy chocolate eyes, lashes drifting shut as he sucks rhythmically on his pacifier.

“And how ‘bout we try to make it through the night, hmm?” she whispers for good measure.

He soon drifts off, and she lays him in the crib with a warm kiss to the cheek and a “Love you, bubba. Sweet dreams”.

She swings through Asa’s room for a few more minutes of conversation, catching up on all the wonderful thoughts that bounce around that big brain of his. Then it’s lights out.

Down the hall, she hears Callie valiantly fighting off all attempts at negotiation for a “few minutes longer”.

“Buenos sueños, m’ijas. Que se duerman bien.”

“Night, Mami, te quiero.”

“Night, Mami, love you.”

They meet at the top of the stairs.

“Lights out in boy-land?”

“Yep. How about girl-ville?”

“All’s quiet.”

“Let’s get downstairs while we still can,” Arizona grins.

“How’s that headache?”

“Still there,” she pouts, headed towards the kitchen to quickly load the dishwasher.

Callie grabs her hand to stop her with a mischievous grin, pulling her back towards the master bedroom.

“Leave the dishes. I have a cure for that headache.”

 

***

 

el fin


End file.
